What metric is critical for assessing the effectiveness of a promotion?

Incremental sales generated is a crucial metric for evaluating the effectiveness of a promotion. This measure directly reflects the additional revenue that can be attributed to the promotional activity, allowing businesses to assess whether the promotion successfully stimulated consumer demand beyond what would have occurred without it.

By analyzing incremental sales, organizations can determine the return on investment (ROI) of a campaign, making it possible to evaluate its impact on overall sales figures. This metric helps in understanding if the promotion achieved its objectives, such as increasing market share or clearing out inventory, and provides insights into future promotional strategies.

While advertising spend, customer acquisition, and social media engagement can provide valuable information about the promotion's reach and potential, they do not directly indicate the sales impact, which is the most critical outcome of any promotional effort. Understanding the true effectiveness of a promotion hinges on examining how much additional revenue it directly generated.